


Oh Raven, Won't You Sing Me A Happy Song?

by tangerinabina_de_archanea



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Mild Blood, Spoilers concerning Seteth and Flayn, Vomiting, general battlefield full of dead people unpleasantness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 18:04:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20782838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangerinabina_de_archanea/pseuds/tangerinabina_de_archanea
Summary: "You want me to be aloneRemind me of what is goneSinging from dusk 'til dawnNevermore, nevermore, nevermore"After the battle on the Tailtean Plains, the ravens sing.





	Oh Raven, Won't You Sing Me A Happy Song?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this song:   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmRiddLR5UY  
And this art:   
https://silketara.tumblr.com/post/187248404246/setethflayn-appreciation-sunday-at-this-point-i

Cichol limps across the battlefield, the mud not helping matters. Everywhere is the scent of blood, and caw of ravens. The space feels so desolate, and yet it is so full, full of death and teeming maggots and weapons stuck in the ground like jagged teeth jutting out of a giant’s mouth.

He can barely carry his lance, but he must, lest another attacker approach. He knows that he won’t be able to do much besides vainly swinging the lance toward them with the wounds to his arm, but he ignores that, because recognizing it might break him. He can’t protect her. In his good arm is cradled his daughter’s body. He won’t let go. He can’t.

He trips on one of the countless corpses littering the field, and angles himself so that he’ll cushion her when they hit the ground. His lance slices his leg and he cries out in pain, but she is safe. That’s what matters. It doesn’t matter that she won’t wake up, it doesn’t matter that he can’t even tell if she’s breathing or not, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter… He feels himself slipping into unconscious but pulls himself out of it in a panic, sitting halfway up propped on his elbows. Cethleann nearly slips out of his grip, but he clutches her more tightly. She looks so peaceful, even with the blood on her face, almost as if she’s sleeping, and for a moment, as his vision blurs, he can pretend that that’s all she’s doing. Just sleeping. She’s sleeping, just sleeping…

He’s fading again but he manages to shake it off, barely. He has to find… His mind is blurry. This is all too much, it’s happening too fast, and the ravens, their song is too loud... It is a death march, off tempo and dissonant and terrible.

The pain wakes him up as he tries to stand, using his bad arm as leverage, and he cries out, gritting his teeth as he pushes through it. He’s almost up, but he stumbles, and falls to his knees, nearly dropping Cethleann. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t let her fall, and suddenly he is up, and he doesn’t know how, and his legs are dragging himself forward without his permission, and he weakly scans the corpses around him for a familiar face. Cethleann’s weight shifts, and he looks down, thinking that she’s waking up, but there’s nothing. Of course there’s nothing. He was a fool to think otherwise, to think that maybe, just maybe, there was hope for her, that maybe she would survive his decision to bring her into this, that she would live… The sobs that rack his throat feel like they’re tearing him to pieces, bit by bit, and he coughs, hacking up blood and only the goddess knows what else. His stomach turns and he’s on the ground again, vomiting up what feels like all the blood and flesh inside him.

It takes him a few minutes to realize that Cethleann isn’t in his grip anymore, and he looks around frantically for her, spotting her not too far away to the left. He drags himself over to her and listens for her heartbeat once he’s there, and for a few horrible moments there’s nothing, nothing at all, but then he hears it, soft and fluttering like a bird, and he sobs again, not in despair but in gratitude. He presses his nose into her hair as he murmurs her name and prayers of thanksgiving, over and over again, and his tears wash away all the blood and dirt. A few moments ago, he had already quietly made the decision that if there was nothing, he would lie down with her and wait for death to come. He hadn’t been able to find his wife’s corpse, but he saw her fall, and in his heart he knows that she’s dead. If Cethleann was gone as well… But that is not something to dwell on. That is not the case. She is alive, and he must press on for her sake, if only for her sake.

He hears the song of the ravens again as he stands up, and it is too loud, but it is full of life and chaos and life and dissonance and  _ life _ . They are alive, if only barely, and it is the happiest song he has ever heard. 

**Author's Note:**

> Someone pLEASE give him a hug


End file.
